Alice’s Restaurant: The 18-Minute Anti-War Anthem That Became a Thanksgiving Tradition
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Arlo Guthrie’s “Alice’s Restaurant” has become as much of a Thanksgiving staple as turkey, stuffing, and green bean casserole, but it is far from your typical holiday song. The 18-minute talking folk-blues number – which is officially named “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree” – forgoes the familiar trope of families gathering around a table to tell the true story of a quirky series of events in 1965 involving a Thanksgiving dinner, a pile of trash, and a little-known rule that helped Guthrie avoid the Vietnam War draft.
